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On Saturday, I tried a new practice routine for net kills. The aim was to help develop a technique that uses finger power rather than wrist power.

The practice is simple: put a racket head cover (the short type, not an all-body cover) onto your racket head. Then try to hit net kills.

(The feeder, for safety, should crouch on the floor and throw the shuttles across the net, so that the hitting point is not directly above him.)

An extremely short hitting motion must be used, with a sudden tightening of the fingers.

After a couple of rounds, take off the racket head cover and repeat the practice. You may be amazed at the results. I discovered effortless power from nowhere

After this practice, I tried some half-court drive rallying. I found that I could use the same technique for half-court drives.

Credit to Lee Jae Bok for this practice idea.

When you were taught to play were you never taught that your grip should be lose (as per previous thread we discussed this) and tighten upon impact?

This is a versio on finger power although not as specific as net kills finger power moves this on a bit.

Try this with dropping a shuttle onto the face of your racket, the racket must be flat and parallel with the floor giving the surface for the shuttle to land.

if you let a shuttle bounce off your racket face and into the air with a lose grip it will not go up very far, try the same with a tight grip and the shuttle should travel the same distance into the air. Try this again starting with the lose grip and tightening the grip upon the moment of impact and the shuttle should fly into the air because of the fingers tightening.

Indeed Lee has taken this to being able to do it with most of his shots without looking as if he is putting much effort into it and being able to hit a shuttle to anywhere on the court from where he is positioned.

When you were taught to play were you never taught that your grip should be lose (as per previous thread we discussed this) and tighten upon impact?

Please don't patronise me Dill. I only wrote the BF grip guide, you know

My purpose in starting this thread was to draw attention to the astonishing success that I have had using this method of practice. If other people try the practice, they may have the same success.

Looking at this from a coach's perspective, there is little value in only teaching such vague platitudes as: "it's all in the wrist"; "just use your fingers"; "tighten the grip on impact". In order to advance a player's skills - and that includes my own - I need to devise or adopt effective methods of practice. And when the practice ideas come from someone like Lee Jae Bok, you often get more than you expected. Let me explain:

This is not just a generic finger tightening.

For years, I have been hitting net kills and all other shots (apart from soft shots) with some form of grip tightening. As you observe, this is a very basic part of any competent player's hitting technique.

I have even practiced "finger power" net kills before, with good results. But the results after trying this racket head-cover practice are much better.

The racket head-cover forces you to use a technique that maximises your finger power. Indeed, the effort required made my forearm ache, which was surprising.

Finger power is not just some trivial tightening of the grip. It is a technique to be developed by specific practice. This practice was a revelation for me; why not try it sometime, and see if it helps you too?

I've tried this and yes, it did give me very good results, however, there are many ways of doing net kills and this is only one way. I found that it was hard for me to carry out brush net kills after doing these 'finger kills'. I can also say that using a squash racket would not produce the same results as the racket's grip would be far too large.

I've tried this and yes, it did give me very good results, however, there are many ways of doing net kills and this is only one way. I found that it was hard for me to carry out brush net kills after doing these 'finger kills'. I can also say that using a squash racket would not produce the same results as the racket's grip would be far too large.

p.s. if I'm not mistaken, this is from lee's "play to win" video

Yes, that's all correct. This technique is fundamentally different from brush net kills, and the two cannot be combined (well, they can - but only in situations where the combination would be pointless).

The brushing technique is used for net kills that are extremely tight to the tape - because in this situation, the "finger power" technique would cause you to hit the net with your racket.

For most net kills, the "finger power" technique is good. Brush net kills, I believe, are much harder to execute consistently.

Originally Posted by Dill

I wasn't aware I was

What grip guide? Haven't seen the thread, sorry.

I thought you had (as many will have recently) just got the LJB vids and are trying the technique for the first time after playing the obligatory pan handle writst kill.

Sorry, I misread the tone of your post. That was an unfair, grouchy comment from me. No hard feelings, I hope

Also, I've seen so many links to the grips guide every time a thread on grips is started, that I've started to assume (wrongly) that it was BF common knowledge. Here's the guide:

Is the power coming from (partly or mostly) a short sharp wrist adduction?

Well, the swing for drives was definitely bigger than for net kills, but smaller than I had used before. So yes, I think some wrist and forearm movement contributed towards the drives. In some cases, however, this movement was very small, and most of the power came from the fingers.

I found that using a smaller swing gave me more time to change grip, so that I could play an extended drive rally, switching grip each time.

I have been using this technique from LJB with players for about ten years with great success. It is not just the fact that the racket cover provides added resistance which strengthens the muscles but that it prevents the player from swinging the racket or taking it back too far and teaches timing. There is a big difference between knowing what a correct technique is and finding effective ways to teach /train it and that is what the racket cover practice does. Expect to see this practice become more popular again now LJB is back in MK.

To say it doesn't help brushes makes no sense, that is like saying that a smash technique doesn't help drop shots.

i have a question. i used the racket head cover thing for weeks working on just this shot and the drive shot. then one day i realized that my racket was broken (it would move funny when swung and when looking at it closely you could tell it had become detached at the shaft). i've blamed it on this practice but i'm not sure if that's what it's really from? has this happened to anyone else? if not, does it make sense that this practice is what caused it.

now for strength training, i use a head heavy (and cheap) Yonex racket that produces the same results.

I would suspect that to be the case. I tried using the head cover with racquet practice before to strengthen my swing when my friend told me that the carbon shafts of current racquets are less durable (more brittle?) than previous generations' and more susceptible to overflexing induced with the head cover on. In addition, uneven stress produced by the practice swing with the cover on would be far more detrimental than the streamline stress a swing w/o the cover produce.

Perhaps using a cheaper racquet of comparable balance and weight would be a better compromise. I would advise against using heavier racquets than you are used to as they do affects your timing. Better to keep most factors consistent with your regular setup to minimise transition between practice and game.

Originally Posted by ruth1

i have a question. i used the racket head cover thing for weeks working on just this shot and the drive shot. then one day i realized that my racket was broken (it would move funny when swung and when looking at it closely you could tell it had become detached at the shaft). i've blamed it on this practice but i'm not sure if that's what it's really from? has this happened to anyone else? if not, does it make sense that this practice is what caused it.

now for strength training, i use a head heavy (and cheap) Yonex racket that produces the same results.